·Information enters the brain via the senses (e.g. eyes and ears) and is then stored in forms such as visual codes (picture), acoustic form (sounds) or a semantic form (the meaning of something).

oVisually– Thinking of an image

oAcoustically– Saying the word repeatedly

oSemantically– (through meaning) using your knowledge of the word

·Capacityis how much information can be stored in the memory.

·It is measured in terms of bits of information, such as number of digits.

·Durationis how long the information can be stored in the memory.

Encoding

Capacity

Duration

STM

Acoustic –

Baddeley

7+/-2 –

Miller

20-30 secs –

Peterson

LTM

Semantically –

Baddeley

Unlimited

Bahrick

STM:

Research Study:encoding

ØBaddeley– Lab experiment. Participants were given lists of acoustically similar and dissimilar words and semantically similar and dissimilar words.

Showedthat participants had more difficulty remembering acoustically similar words in STM.

Research Study:capacity

ØMiller– Reviewed previous research and concluded that the span of STM is 7+/-2. He also found that chunking things together makes it easier to recall.

Research Study:duration

ØPeterson– Lab experiment. Participants were given a nonsense trigram and a three digit number to remember. They were asked to count backwards from the number between different intervals to prevent rehearsal.

Showedthat participants could remember 90% with a 3 second interval but only 5% after 18 seconds, suggesting the duration of STM is 20-30 seconds.

Evaluation– Low ecological validity as material used is artificial

Trigrams could have been displaced by numbers therefore forgetting was due to displacement.

LTM:

Research Study:encoding

ØBaddeley– Lab experiment. Participants were given lists of acoustically similar and dissimilar words and semantically similar and dissimilar words.

Showedthat participants had more difficulty remembering semantically similar words, suggesting that LTM is encoded semantically.

Research Study:duration

ØBahrick– Natural experiment. Participants of various ages were asked to match names to faces from their high school yearbook.

Showedthat participants 48 years on were 70% accurate suggesting that the duration of the LTM was better due to the information being more meaningful.

Multi-Store Model (Atkinson & Shiffrin)

·Multi-store model (MSM)is an explanation of memory. It is based on the idea that it has three separate memory stores (SM, STM, LTM).

oInformation first arrives at SM. Once attention is paid to the information it transfers to the STM.

oInformation in STM is in a fragile state. If the information is not rehearsed then the information is lost (decays).

oNew information enters known as displacement.

oHowever, if the information is rehearsed then the information further transfers into the LTM…